Israeli undercover policemen detain a Palestinian man during clashes on September 24, 2013.

Iran entitled to have peaceful nuclear program: Hollande

French President François Hollande says the Islamic Republic of Iran is entitled to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Tehran “clearly has the right to pursue its civilian program,” Hollande said in his address to the 68th annual session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

The French president also called on Iran to show “concrete gestures” to help resolve the issues regarding its nuclear energy program.

He hailed the position taken by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Iran's nuclear energy program as “a glimmer of hope” and called for more practical measures on behalf of Tehran.

Rouhani and Hollande are scheduled to meet in New York later in the day to mainly discuss the crisis in Syria and Iran's nuclear energy program.

Hollande will be the first French president to meet with an Iranian president since 2005, when France’s then president, Jacques Chirac, met his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Khatami, in Paris.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies falsely claim that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program, with the US and the European Union using the unfounded allegation as a pretext to impose illegal sanctions on Iran.

Tehran strongly rejects the claim against its nuclear energy program, maintaining that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Base displays air defense hardware

Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base has displayed a number of its hardware at the Armed Forces parade marking the beginning of the Sacred Defense Week in Tehran.

The hardware include Nebo mobile radar system, Kasta surveillance system, Matla' al-Fajr radar system, S-200 missile system, Hog missile system, Shahab radar system and Skyguard defense system.

The parade - marking the 33rd anniversary of eight years of defense against an Iraqi invasion under executed dictator Saddam Hussein - was held on Sunday at the mausoleum of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Sacred Defense Week commemorates the braveries of the Iranian soldiers who fought in the 1980-1988 Iraqi-imposed war and defended their country from enemy aggressions.

Iranian Armed Forces also displayed their latest military and defensive achievements during the parade.

In recent years, Iran has made great achievements in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing essential military equipment and systems.

Tehran has repeatedly assured other nations that its military might poses no threat to other countries, stating that the Islamic Republic’s defense doctrine is entirely based on deterrence.

Iranian Armed Forces mark Sacred Defense Week

Iranian Armed Forces have begun a major parade to mark the 33rd anniversary of eight years of defense against Iraqi invasion under executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

The opening ceremony of the 'Sacred Defense Week' started on Sunday at the mausoleum of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The latest military and defensive achievements of the country’s Armed Forces will be displayed during the parade.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to deliver a speech during the ceremony.

Among the high-ranking Iranian military officials present at the ceremony are Chief of Staff of Iran's Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan, Commandear of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari and Commander of Iran's Army Major General Ataollah Salehi.

The Sacred Defense Week commemorates the braveries of the Iranian soldiers who fought in the 1980-1988 Iraqi-imposed war and defended their country from enemy aggressions.

Russia accuses US of blackmail over Syria

Russia accuses the US of trying to blackmail Moscow by threatening to hinder the work of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Syria unless Moscow supports a UN Security Council resolution that allows the use of force against the Arab country.

“Our American partners are beginning to blackmail us,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Russia's Channel one television.

Lavrov added that “right now Western partners are trying to unceremoniously push through a resolution under (UN) Chapter 7” adding that if they were successful, Washington would “move the (chemical weapons) convention aside to advance individual, personal or geopolitical, state ambitions.”

Lavrov said “It is an absolute deviation from what we have agreed on with (US Secretary of State) John Kerry -- to have an OPCW decision first and then to adopt a UN Security Council resolution supporting this decision but not based on Chapter 7.”

According to the UN charter, Chapter VII authorizes the use of force with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression.

The US accepted a Russia plan to bring Syria's chemical weapons under international control to avert growing US threats of military intervention there. Syria agreed to the Russia-US plan under which it has to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile until mid-2014. As the first phase of the deal, Damascus had until Saturday to submit a full list to OPCW of its chemical weapons and production facilities so they can be secured and destroyed. The OPCW has confirmed that the Syrian government handed over the list.

The US and some of its allies accuse Syria of launching a chemical attack which killed hundreds of people on August 21 near Damascus. Syria and Russia reject the allegation arguing that insurgents carried out the attack.

Lavrov said the US and its allies pursue a “deeply politicized approach” to the crisis in Syria. “They see the Russian-US agreement as a chance for themselves to ... insist on a 'use of force' resolution targeting the regime and defending the opposition,” Lavrov said.

He said Western countries are intent on ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to show they “order the music” in the Middle East.

Confronting the Russia-China axis: Obama intends war on Syria

Obama intends waging war on Syria. Russia’s efforts delayed it. An uneasy calm before the storm prevails.

Shock and awe attacks are planned. They could come any time. Pretexts are easy to create. False flags are longstanding US policy. So are Big Lies. Regime change is prioritized. Obama intends getting it one way or another.

In mid-September, Russia, China, and other Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members and observer states met in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Vladimir Putin said “military interference from outside the country without a UN Security Council sanction is inadmissible.”

The summit’s joint declaration opposes “Western intervention in Syria, as well as the loosening of the internal and regional stability in the Middle East.”

SCO prioritizes international “reconciliation.” It wants peaceful conflict resolution. It supports convening Geneva II as soon as possible. Washington has other ideas.

On September 19, John Kerry hinted at what’s coming. He addressed reporters. He did so in the State Department’s press briefing room.

”We really don’t have time today to pretend that anyone can have their own set of facts approaching the issue of chemical weapons in Syria,” he said.

“This fight about Syria’s chemical weapons is not a game. It’s real. It’s important.”

”It’s important to the lives of people in Syria. It’s important to the region. It’s important to the world that this be enforced this agreement that we came out of Geneva with.”

”(T)hanks to this week’s long-awaited UN report, the facts in Syria only grew clearer and the case only grew more compelling.”

“The findings in the Sellstrom report were as categorical as they were convincing.”

“Every single data point - the types of munitions and launchers that were used, their origins, their trajectory, their markings, and the confirmation of sarin - every single bit of it confirms what we already knew and what we told America and the world.”

“It confirms what we have brought to the attention of our Congress, the American people, and the rest of the world.”

”The UN report confirms unequivocally that chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, were used in Syria.”

”And despite the regime’s best efforts to shell the area and destroy the evidence, the UN interviewed more than 50 survivors - patients, victims, health workers, first responders.”

”They documented munitions and subcomponents. They assessed symptoms of survivors, analyzed hair, urine, blood samples.”

”And they analyzed 30 soil and environmental samples.”

“And what did they learn? They returned with several crucial details that confirmed that the Assad regime is guilty of carrying out that attack, even though that was not the mandate of the UN report.”

“But anybody who reads the facts and puts the dots together, which is easy to do - and they made it easy to do - understands what those facts mean.”

“We know the Assad regime possesses sarin and there’s not a shred of evidence, however, that the opposition does.”

So there you have it. Sarin was used. Sarin killed. The world can decide whether it was used by the regime, which has used chemical weapons before, the regime which had the rockets and the weapons, or whether the opposition secretly went unnoticed into territory they don’t control to fire rockets they don’t have containing sarin that they don’t possess to kill their own people.”

”And then without even being noticed, they just disassembled it all and packed up and got out of the center of Damascus, controlled by Assad.”

”Please. This isn’t complicated. When we said we know what is true, we meant it. And now, before I head to New York for the UN General Assembly, we have a definitive UN report strengthening the case and solidifying our resolve.”

“Now the test comes. The Security Council must be prepared to act next week.”

“It is vital for the international community to stand up and speak out in the strongest possible terms about the importance of enforceable action to rid the world of Syria’s chemical weapons.”

“So I would say to the community of nations: Time is short. Let’s not spend time debating what we already know.”

“We need to make the Geneva agreement meaningful and to make it meaningful in order to eliminate Syria’s CW program and to do it with transparency and with the accountability, the full accountability that is demanded here.”

“It is important that we accomplish the goal in New York and accomplish it as rapidly as possible.”

Fact check

Kerry repeated one Big Lie after another. He restated much of what he said before. Each time reflected a Colin Powell moment. He turned truth on its head consistently. He does it every time he speaks.

Throughout months of conflict, no evidence links Assad to chemical weapons use. Plenty shows insurgents used them multiple times.

They bear fully responsibility for attacking Ghouta. Claiming they have no access to sarin or other chemical weapons doesn’t wash.

Kerry knows it. He lied saying otherwise. Sarin containing rockets came from insurgent-held territory. Pro-Assad civilians were targeted.

Why would Assad attack his supporters? Why would he do it with UN inspectors close by? Why would he risk harming his own soldiers and innocent civilians?

Why would he need to use chemical weapons? He’s effectively routing insurgent fighters. He’s doing it consistently.

The UN inspectors report is suspect. It’s rife with inconsistencies. It’s one-sided. It willfully deceives. It was a rush job. It was sloppy, tainted and worthless.

Crucial evidence absolving Assad was ignored. The alleged crime scene was corrupted. Alleged munitions evidence could have been planted beforehand.

Anti-Assad witnesses may have been chosen. Supportive ones may have been denied their say. Fake videos were used.

So-called evidence isn’t any at all. Media reports suppressed what’s most important to know. Assad’s wrongfully blamed for insurgents’ crimes. It happened repeatedly throughout months of conflict.

Russia has convincing evidence. It shows insurgents bear responsibility for attacking Ghouta. It’s being submitted to UN authorities. It’ll be considered when Security Council members convene next week.

Russia represents the last line of defense against war. On Thursday, Vladimir Putin addressed over 200 Valdai International Discussion Club politicians, experts and journalists.

He believes Russia deserves the best leadership possible. America falls woefully short of good governance, he said. It’s democracy is none at all. It’s a convenient illusion. It mocks the real thing.

Moscow has reason “to believe that (Ghouta’s attack) was a provocation,” Putin said.

“Of course, it was adroit and smart, but, at the same time, primitive in terms of technical performance.”

“They took an old Soviet-made missile, which was taken out of service in the Syrian army long ago. It was most important to have (it say) ‘made in the USSR.’ ”

It’s not the first time insurgents used chemical weapons. “(W)hy haven’t other cases been investigated,” asked Putin?

He said military measures can’t resolve international issues. They require deliberative Security Council discussions. They need peaceful resolutions. War assures continued bloodshed.

Putin has high confidence in Assad. He believes he’ll fulfill his agreed on obligation. He’ll destroy his chemical weapons as promised. It’ll take a year or longer to do so. It’ll cost $1 billion, he believes.

He wants two and half years of conflict ended. Obama has other plans in mind. So does NATO.

On September 19, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen addressed the Carnegie Europe Event.

Throughout months of Syrian conflict, he lied saying NATO remains uninvolved.

Washington, Britain, France and Turkey have been heavily involved. They’ve been so since conflict erupted in March 2011.

Rasmussen perhaps intends upping the stakes.

“It is clear that what happened around Damascus on 21st August is a war crime,” he said.

“And it is clear that the international community has a duty to hold those responsible to account.”

“NATO remains vigilant. We continue to keep the situation in Syria under close review. And we continue to protect the Alliance’s south-eastern border.”

“While the ultimate solution to the Syrian crisis can only be political, I have no doubt that the recent agreement could not have been reached without a credible military option.”

NATO is a global killing machine. According to Rasmussen, it’s “the foundation on which any Ally or group of Allies can build their response to any crisis.”

He left no doubt what he means. War tops NATO’s agenda. It waged multiple ones before. It may plan one on Syria. The fullness of time will tell.

“Allied nations (must) stand ready to act,” said Rasmussen. “And when they act, they can be more effective.”

“NATO remains an essential source of stability in an unpredictable world.” (W)e must always ensure that we have the military capabilities to protect (so-called) values and the political will to do so.”

Rasmussen stopped short of calling NATO a global policeman. It’s that and much more. It’s a rogue killing machine.

Rasmussen addressed Syria. He said it’s essential to keep “the military option on the table.” He called Washington-led NATO war on Libya a “positive example.”

Africa’s most developed country was ravaged and destroyed. NATO transformed it into a charnel house. It remains a cauldron of violence.

It’s a dystopian backwater. NATO nearly bombed it back to the stone age. It’ll take decades to restore what once existed.

Perhaps Rasmussen has the same thing in mind for Syria. The military option is often NATO’s first choice. It eventually attacks when other alternatives have been exhausted.

In 1967, former Israeli diplomat Abba Eban perhaps had NATO in mind saying:

“Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.”

Rasmussen was clear and unequivocal, saying:

“The use of chemical weapons is a crime. It is a violation of international law, and that’s why it needs a firm international response to prevent such attacks from happening again.”

“That’s why right from the outset I have been in favor of a firm military response and that threat of using military force has now facilitated a political and diplomatic process that can lead to the elimination of chemical weapons in Syria, and that is of course a desirable outcome of this.”

Washington largely controls NATO policy. Obama wants regime change in Syria. War is his option of choice. He’ll decide when and for what reason. The fullness of time will explain.

Ending one war, ending all wars

From a certain angle it doesn't look like a happy day of peace. The US government is engaged in a major war in Afghanistan, dramatically escalated by the current US president, who has been bizarrely given credit for ending it for so long now that a lot of people imagine it is ended.

The same president goes through a list of men, women, and children on Tuesdays, picks which ones to have murdered, and has them murdered, often with missiles shot out of unmanned drones, drones that circle people's villages endlessly threatening immediate annihilation moment after moment for weeks on end, missiles that often miss their targets and often kill random people too close to their targets.

The CIA with war powers. Secret military operations in dozens of nations. Expansion of US troop presence in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Some 90 percent of the world's nations with US troops in them.

Prisoners force-fed in Guantanamo. Black sites. Iraq ruined without reparations. Libya thrown into anarchy without apology. Activists treated as enemies. Journalists treated as spies. Whistleblowers locked up in cages. Our Constitutional rights treated as dispensable. The United Nations used, abused, and circumvented. US weapons provided to dictatorships and democracies around the globe. Tennessee's US Senator Bob Corker going on television repeatedly for weeks to tell us that the United States is covertly aiding one side of a war in Syria. Does he not know what "covertly" means, or does he not know how television works?

But I believe that, despite all of that and much more, there is huge reason to celebrate a happy international day of peace. At most events where I speak there is a time for questions, and almost always there is someone whose question is really more of a speech to the effect that war opposition is delusional and hopeless; if the government wants a war, it gets a war -- so this person always tell us. Well, no more. From this day forward, that person's comments should be no match for the laughter that greets them, because we just prevented a war.

Congress members heard from many thousands of us, and what they heard was over 100-to-1 against attacking Syria. When it became clear that not even the Senate would authorize such an attack, talk shifted immediately from the inevitability of war to the desirability of avoiding war.

Secretary of State John Kerry said that President Bashar al-Assad could avoid a war by handing over all the chemical weapons his government possessed. Russia quickly called that bluff and Syria agreed to it. Syria had tried in the past to negotiate a Middle East free of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, but the United States had been opposed, not wanting to stop arming Egypt and Israel.

Secretary Kerry, apparently panicked by the possible delay or prevention of missile strikes, put out a statement that he had only been making a "rhetorical argument," not a real proposal. But when the White House saw the writing on the wall in Congress, Kerry claimed to have meant his comment seriously after all. He was for his own idea after he'd been against it.

Of all the many ways in which John Kerry has tied himself in knots before, this is the first time he's had to do so because the people of this country and the world rejected a war. Remember when Kerry asked how you could ask someone to be the last man to die in the war on Vietnam? We have it in our power to reject the next war and the next war and the next war and make John Kerry the last man to have tried to sell us a dead idea.

War is a dead idea, an idea whose time has gone. The abolition of war is an idea whose time has come. But the government isn't ready to announce that for us. That's why we need to celebrate this victory. And not just us at this festival. This was everybody. This was the people of Syria who spoke against an attack on their nation. This was the people of Iraq and Afghanistan who said don't do to others what you've already done to us. This was the people of the world and of Russia and of China who said you won't paint this crime as legal with our help. This was the people of Britain who moved their House of Commons to reject a prime minister's request for war for the first time since the surrender to the French and Americans at Yorktown. This was low and high ranking members of the US military saying "We didn't sign up to fight for al Qaeda."

This was government experts risking their careers and their freedom to say "If President Obama's excuse for a war happened, he's guessed it right, because the evidence doesn't establish it." This was the majority of the US public telling pollsters, yes, we care about suffering children; send them food and medicine, don't make it worse by sending in missiles." This was the victory not of a moment but of a decade of cultural enlightenment. When you've got the Pope and Rush Limbaugh on your side you've built something very broad. Remember when they called resistance to war "The Vietnam Syndrome" as if it were a disease? What we've got now is the War on Terror Inoculation. This is health, not sickness. War is the health of the state, said a World War I resister. But war resistance is the health of the people. The people are the world's other super power.

So, yes, I say celebrate! Start seeing successes. Drone attacks are down dramatically. Environmental groups are beginning to oppose military base constructions. States are beginning to work on conversion of war industries to peaceful industries. Larry Summers has been denied a chance to do more economic damage.

Imagine the euphoria -- or don't imagine it, just remember it -- when this country elects a new president whose main redeeming feature is that he isn't the previous president. For personality fanatics that's big stuff. And there are big parties. For policy fanatics -- for those of us interested in seeing policies change rather than personalities -- that kind of moment is right now. The first step in overcoming an addiction, whether to war or alcohol, is recognizing that you have a problem. The second step is believing that you can shake it if you try. We've just taken the first two steps! The war addicts said Syria needed an intervention. We gave the war junkies an intervention instead. We pointed them toward the path of recovery and showed them a preview of what it will look like.

Now, if you don't want to celebrate because there's too much work to do, because Syria is in greater danger without its weapons (look what happened to Iraq and Libya), and because the pressure for war is still on, I can respect that. I'll be with you starting tomorrow. But it's hard to imagine we'll find the most effective strategy, much less motivate all the doom and gloomers to work their hardest, if we refuse to recognize when we've actually made progress, no matter how limited.

If you don't want to celebrate because you don't think public pressure made any impact and don't think it ever can, I've looked at enough of the recent history and distant history to say, with all due respect: I don't believe you. And if you believed yourself you wouldn't be here today.

Now, there is endless work to be done when we get back to it in the morning. Congressman Cooper was pretty noncommittal, I understand, as quite a few Congress members were. He kept an open mind. Maybe, just maybe, he must have thought, it makes sense to deescalate a war by escalating it, maybe these magic missiles with Raytheon pixie dust on them will kill only the people who really need killing while empowering fanatic heart-and-liver eaters who execute their prisoners to establish a secular democracy, and perhaps we really can uphold the norm against chemical weapons that our own nation violates with some regularity by blatantly violating the norm against attacking other countries with missiles, and maybe we'll enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention against a nation that never signed it by shredding the UN Charter and the Kellogg-Briand Pact as long as we call ourselves "The International Community" and if we can't get France to help maybe Puerto Rico would count as a Coalition of the Willing, and perhaps, perhaps just maybe Assad really is out to get us and just might be a threat to Nashville, Tennessee, and if not isn't the only thing that really matters President Obama's manhood and the respect he can only maintain if he behaves like a sociopath? Some part of this must be roughly how undecided members of Congress looked at this thing. Senator Harry Reid said Syria was the return of the Nazis, and he himself looked just like Elmer Fudd warning of a dangerous wabbit, but maybe he was right, think our elected representatives. There is work to be done.

Republicans in Congress turned against war more than they might have with a Republican president. And some Democrats, including a co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, cheered for war. The Black Caucus told its members to shut their mouths and not speak about Syria. But they didn't all listen. The leadership of the two parties pushed for war, and most members of both parties said No Way. That's something to build on. Anything that has happened is automatically acceptable and respectable, and in that category now is war rejection, regardless of who is president in the future.

Senator Corker thinks the United States has lost credibility. I think it's gained it. The United States claims to use war as a last resort. When an occasion finally arrives in which it doesn't use war as a first resort, that boosts the credibility of its claim. The US justifies its wars with the word "democracy." When it listens to its people for once, it demonstrates democracy by example rather than by dropping cluster bombs or napalm or using those depleted uranium weapons giving the workers who make them cancer over in eastern Tennessee. The world was skeptical of the US case for war because of past US lies, not because of past US failures to bomb people.

The threat to attack Syria is still on the table. If you listen to these people enough you really come to hate tables, by the way. The White House claims Syria has signed the Chemical Weapons Convention under threat of attack, even though any signing of any treaty under threat of attack is illegal and invalid. Meanwhile, if we wanted to find a stockpile of chemical weapons, there's 524 tons of poison gas at the Blue Grass Army Depot, just up the road toward Lexington, Kentucky, from here. The United States wants 10 more years to destroy that, although maybe it can go a little faster since John Kerry seems to think a week is more than enough time for Syria to destroy its stockpile. The Army spokesman in Kentucky says the delays there are a sign of democracy and public input. Our leading spreaders of democracy to the rest of the world, on the other hand, believe the most important consideration is that nothing ever be credited to diplomacy if it can be credited to violence. The US has a stash five times the size of Kentucky's out in Colorado, where climate-induced floods and fires pose a danger of combining with the madness of militarism if we don't switch soon from preparing for wars to preparing for a sustainable existence -- If we don't start paying attention to Fukushima and global warming and keep laughing, as we have been, at the idea that Assad is going to kill us.

But, our government also has peculiar views about different types of weapons that I don't claim to understand. Chemical weapons are good, apparently, when the US uses them on Iraqis, or Iraq uses them on Iranians, or Israel uses them on Palestinians, but they're bad if Iraq uses them on Iraqis or the Syrian government uses them on anyone -- although they aren't so bad if it is Syrian rebels using them. In cases of bad chemical weapons use, missiles could fix the problem. But with missiles you have to ask Congress. So, instead, you can fix the problem of people getting killed with chemicals by making sure that more of them get killed with guns. With guns, for some reason, you don't have to ask Congress. Senators can even chat on TV about what they're doing "covertly," and we're supposed to say "Oh, well that's OK then, as long as it's covertly."

Only . . . when people bleed and scream in agony and turn cold do they do it covertly? Because I think the entire operation needs to be done covertly, not just parts of it.

Maybe the problem is that we just don't think guns are weapons of mass destruction. Guns must be weapons of minimal destruction, I guess. Guns only kill 30,000 people in the United States each year, ten times the number of people killed on September 11, 2001. Imagine the size of the war we'd have started if someone had killed 30,000 people with airplanes. Would we have had to kill 10 million Iraqis instead of 1 million? But with guns, deaths are OK, and 60% of them don't really count because they're suicides.

Only . . . why are people desperate enough to kill themselves in the wealthiest nation on earth when we have a bigger military and more billionaires than any other society in the history of the world? Shouldn't that satisfy us? Anyone too dense to appreciate that great good fortune, well, at least we've made sure there's always a gun or two within easy reach.

I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not joking. We have a serious problem with acceptance of violence. This past Sunday night on "60 Minutes" John Miller of CBS News said, "I've spoken with intelligence analysts who have said an uncomfortable thing that has a ring of truth, which is: the longer this war in Syria goes on, in some sense the better off we are."

Now, why would that be uncomfortable, do you suppose? Could it be because encouraging huge numbers of violent deaths of human beings seems sociopathic?

The discomfort that Miller at least claims to feel is the gauge of our moral progress, I suppose, since June 23, 1941, when Harry Truman said, "If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible."

On Monday, Time magazine's Aryn Baker published an article under the headline "Syria's Rebels Turn on One Another, and That's Not a Bad Thing." Baker's point wasn't that more would die this way, but that this would allow the US to escalate the war (which of course would mean more dying).

Remember that President Obama's reason for wanting to attack Syria is to "confront actions that are violating our common humanity." How is it that support for mass killing rarely seems to violate our common humanity if it's that other 96 percent of humanity getting killed, and especially if it's this 4 percent doing it? Why is the excuse to kill more people always that people are being killed, while we never starve people to prevent them from starving or rape people to protect them from rape?

The uncomfortable "60 Minutes" interviewer addressed his remarks to a former CIA officer who replied by disagreeing. He claimed to want the war to end. But how would he end it? By arming and aiding one side, just enough and not too much -- which would supposedly result in peace negotiations, albeit with a risk of major escalation. While nobody ever extends peace in order to generate war, people are constantly investing in war in the name of peace.

As this man may be very well aware, arming one side in this war will encourage that side's viciousness and encourage the other side to arm itself further as well. But suppose it were actually true that you could deescalate a war by escalating a war. Why are the large number of people who would be killed in the process unworthy of consideration?

We've seen lawyers tell Congressional committees that killing people with drones is either murder or perfectly fine, depending on whether Obama's secret memos say the killings are part of a war. But why is killing people acceptable in a war? We've just watched public pressure deny Obama missile strikes on Syria. Those strikes were optional. Had they happened that would have been a choice, not an inevitability. What of the immorality involved?

The best news is that we're beginning to feel uncomfortable. We're even feeling uncomfortable enough to doubt the tales we're told about justifications for wars. The fact is that, were the White House telling the truth about the need for an attack on Syria, it would be a first in history. Every other case for war has always been dishonest.

The United States sought out war with Mexico, not the reverse. There was never any evidence that Spain sank the Maine. The Philippines didn't benefit from US occupation. The Lusitania was known to be carrying troops and arms. The Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened. Iraq didn't take any babies out of incubators. The Taliban was willing to turn bin Laden over to be tried in a neutral court. Libya wasn't about to kill everyone in Benghazi. And so on.

Even wars that people like to imagine as justified, such as World War II, were nonetheless packaged in lies; FDR's tales about the Greer and the Kearney and supposed secret Nazi maps and plans were a step on the steady trajectory from Woodrow Wilson to Karl Rove.

The idea that Syria used chemical weapons is more plausible than the idea that Iraq had vast stockpiles of chemical, biological, and (in some versions) nuclear weapons and was working with al Qaeda. But the evidence offered in the case of Syria was no stronger than that for Iraq. It was harder to disprove merely because there was nothing to it: no documentation, no sources, and until the UN report came out, no science. Congress members who have seen the classified version of the White House case say it's no better than the declassified. Experts within the government and reporters in Syria who have seen more than that say they don't believe the White House's claims.

The assertions masquerading as a case come packaged in dishonest claims about the make-up of the rebels, and how quickly Syria gave access to inspectors. And the claims are written in a manner to suggest far greater knowledge and certainty than they actually assert on careful examination. The latest claims follow a series of failed claims over a period of months and stand to benefit a Syrian opposition that has been found repeatedly to be manufacturing false propaganda aimed at bringing the United States into the war. It seems, at this point, unlikely that the Assad government used chemical weapons (as opposed to the rebels or someone in the Syrian military defying Assad by using them), but it seems certain that if Assad did it, Obama and Kerry don't know that -- they've only guessed it at best. It also seems certain that escalating the war makes everyone worse off regardless of who used chemical weapons. Attacking Iraq would have been immoral, illegal, and catastrophic (and probably more so) if all the weapons stories had been true.

Then there are the depictions of Assad as a threat to the United States, at which moments President Obama has almost begun to sound like his predecessor. But, as he came on stage second, nobody believed him. Assad is guilty of horrible crimes, but he's not yet-another new Hitler. There's a cute story about Assad from 11 years ago this week that some of us may have forgotten. A Canadian man named Maher Arar had been born in Syria. US officials nabbed him for the crime of switching planes in New York City. They interrogated him for weeks, denying him access to a lawyer or to the Canadian government. They asked Arar to go to Syria, and he refused. So they stuck him on a CIA plane, flew him to Jordan, beat him for 8 hours, and then delivered him to the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad. President Assad's government beat and whipped Arar for 18 hours a day for weeks, asking him similar questions to those the Americans had asked. For 10 months he was kept in a 3 by 6 by 7 foot underground cell, then released with no charges. Four years later, the Canadian government, which had done nothing, apologized to and compensated Arar. Former CIA case officer Bob Baer said, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear-never to see them again-you send them to Egypt."

The Syrian government is, like any government the United States wants to attack, a brutal government that the United States worked with until recently, situated in a region full of brutal governments the United States still supports. In this case, the brutal governments still armed and supported by the US government include Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Yemen. If the US government wanted to reduce violence, it could end its 2001-begun war on Afghanistan, it could end its drone strikes, and it could stop supplying Saudi Arabia with cluster bombs and Egypt with tear gas and Bahrain with ex-police chiefs. Wars are not driven by generosity, despite what you'll often -- and increasingly -- hear.

Syria needs humanitarian aid, not weapons that threaten the good aid work being done by Americans among others. The Iraqi Student Project was bringing Iraqis to study in US colleges. Its office was in Syria, where many Iraqi refugees had fled from the US liberation. Now that office is closed, and Syria has its own refugee crisis to rival Iraq's. Our government should be urging both sides to stop providing arms, to agree to a ceasefire, and to open negotiations without preconditions. Syria has needed help for years, but our government tends to wait until missiles look like a proper solution to get serious about solving a problem.

Syria's crisis was brought on in part by climate induced drought and water shortage. The solution of sending in missiles (blocked for now) or of sending in guns (underway as we speak) misses that source of the problem and in fact exacerbates it. The US military is our greatest consumer of petroleum, which it consumes in the course of fighting wars and occupying countries to control petroleum. The roughly $1 trillion spent by the United States and roughly $1 trillion spent by the rest of the world on militarism every year could coat the planet with sustainable green energy sources beyond the wildest imaginings of those sources' proponents.

As long as we continue to view war as an acceptable institution, serious reductions in the military will be impeded by the desire to win wars when they happen. Instead of reduced war making, we need war abolition. 180 million people died in wars in the 20th century. Enough is enough. War has not brought security. War endangers us rather than protecting us. War has failed as a tool for ending war. War is draining our economies, eroding our civil liberties, devastating our natural environment, and stealing resources away from critical human and environmental needs. Nonviolent tools have proven themselves more effective and less costly than war.

War's unpredictability and existing weaponry including nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction threaten our very existence, while the reallocation of resources away from war promises a world whose advantages are beyond easy imagination. We could even stop paying farmers not to farm and start paying weapons makers not to make weapons while they convert their factories to begin making something useful. Cutting $40 billion from food stamps will kill more people than spending it for a few months of occupying Afghanistan will kill.

Anti-war sentiment, at least in some key parts of the world, is at a high point now, relative to other moments in recent decades. We need to direct that sentiment into a movement for abolition. Resisting each new war is not enough. We must be for peace and by peace we must mean, first and foremost, the elimination of the institution of war. We're all fond of saying that peace is more than just the absence of war. True enough. And freedom is more than just the absence of chains. But first you had to abolish slavery. Then new possibilities opened up. So, today I'm not going to say, "No Justice, No Peace." Today I say, "With No Peace, There Is No Justice." Stop the wars. End the slaughter. Dismantle the weapons. Abolish the military. Build a sustainable peaceful prosperous world. Make this point in time a turning point. Thank you for being here. Happy International Day of Peace!